Note 293 — Chapter VII · The Building of Polisy and the last years of Jean de Dinteville. His supposed Portrait at Windsor

... “as I did not wish to become a monk, she placed me with M. de Polizy, Bailly of Troyes, head of the house of Dinteville, a personage as accomplished and as adorned with all virtues and sciences as any man of his time and quality; having been governour to M. d’Orléans and ambassador for the king in England. But having become paralytic, and helpless in all his limbs, and being unable for this reason to continue at Court, and having therefore retired to his own home, he began for his pleasure and entertainment to build this beautiful house of Polizy. Which personage showed me such friendship that he would take the trouble himself to instruct me in all the sciences of which my youth was capable; and, when I had remained with him up to the age of fourteen or fifteen years, wishing to form me better by the frequenting of society and the exercise of arms, he gave me to M. Deschenetz, his brother, Chevalier of the King’s Order, and captain of fifty men-at-arms, with whom I made several journeys....”

At a later date Mergey fought for “la religion” (i.e., the reformed religion), under La Rochefoucauld; but wishing to have, as he says, “another string to his bow,” he did not forget to cultivate “Mr. de Sesac” (a follower of the Guise), who had meanwhile become the husband of Claude de Dinteville, the eldest daughter of Deschenetz and heiress of Polisy. This was the lady with whom, in later years, Camusat was acquainted, and through whom he learnt the story of Holbein’s masterpiece (see Part I., p. 14). It will be perceived, therefore, how close was the connection between Jean de Dinteville, uncle to this lady, and the documents derived from Camusat which relate the history of the picture.